December 23
Yesterday when we were out driving, Connor was sharing on of his “Species” podcasts. It was about the fascinating bird called the Greater Honeyguide. The honeyguide is, perhaps, humanity's oldest friend. We share a symbiotic relationship that is among the most complicated examples of mutualism in nature—the only natural instance of human cooperation with a wild animal.
In Africa, when the honeyguide knows where a bee hive is, it will find a human and call. Once the human sees it, the honeyguide will fly towards the hive stopping along the way to call and wait for the human to catch up. When it gets to the tree with the hive in it, the bird will change its call. The human then climbs the tree, smokes the hive and shares the broken hive with the bird. The honeyguide eats the wax and larvae.
Studies have shown that this relationship reduces the time it takes the human to find a hive from 8 hours to 3 hours. Humans also have a whistle they use to try to summon the honeyguide.
We saw these birds twice when we were in Botswana. But we were not aware that maybe we should have followed it!
Stay well !
